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The news agencies used to take pride in sending reporters to all points on the globe to gather actual news. Now, they seem to enjoy stories that don’t move around too much. Sex, drugs, abusive relationships, and murder. Our tax dollars at work while the media tries to convince us this murder is more important than any other murder that takes place on any given day.Any news on job creation?Respectfully,C.

The press and the TV News shows have now become the equivalent of bread and circuses. Such “reporting” is more like gladiator shows… appealing to the most prurient of interests. Thousands of children are dying in Sudan and THIS is more important? I get the impression it is mainly women who spend their time clucking their tongues over such things as a sordid murder, soaking up every detail like blood into a sponge. And then they wonder why they can’t break through the glass ceilings? Well, for one thing, most people who take themselves seriously are too busy improving their minds or studying to watch such claptrap!

I am moving off-subject to reply to some questions you asked of me a couple of days ago.

1. I did not say that Waco and Ruby Ridge or the administrations under whom they occurred was the equal of Saddam Hussein’s rule. I was pointing out that one of our justifications for initiating war in Iraq (“He killed his own people”) could be used to justify war with the US instead.

Thank you for posting the details from one of Saddam’s torture victims. I wonder how similar these were to what our government did after the invasion. I do know that they admitted to waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 180 times on one month. For the math-challenged, that’s six times per day, on average.

I do not in any way excuse what KSM is alleged to have done, and I hope we have the right guy so we can punish him properly. BUT, imagine for a moment that you are in an enemy prison, and you are waterboarded. Do you have any desire to help them? Won’t you tell them what you think they want to hear—anything but the truth—to make the pain stop?

Now, if they do it to you 179 times more in one month, are you even more willing to tell the truth?

We are no longer the country we are so proud of: warrantless wiretapping, torture/rendition, indefinite detention, a private army ungoverned by conventional laws (Blackwater)…..we have gotten much closer to what we despise in other countries. It has been slowly developing, but gained a great deal of momentum under Mr. Bush, continuing with Mr. Obama.

2. You come up with the most interesting conclusions….When I responded to your pointing out that nobody read the ACA before voting, I asked if you thought anyone read the PATRIOT act before voting on it; I think I used another example in addition. Your response to me was something along the lines of: “So you think that if it’s all right to do it once, it’s okay to do it forever?”

Not at all; it’s the mirror image of that argument: my point is that it is NEVER right to enact legislation that has not been carefully checked to ensure that its intent, and ONLY its intent, is included without the potential for creation of loopholes. And no one has been that responsible in the Congress since way before the Obama administration.

A secondary point is to wonder why this sort of thing was tolerable under other administrations, but suddenly it joins a list of things that Obama has done to ruin America.

Jodi Arias allegedly killed x-lover, Travis Alexander about June, 2008 in a typically lurid three person relationship. She claims she defended herself as he was abusive and she shot him to protect herself. It’s all over Faux news.

About Steve Benson

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1993, Steve Benson has been a lightning rod for more than 20 years as the staff editorial cartoonist for The Arizona Republic. Benson sums up his career best: "I don’t aim to please. I just aim."